Unhelpful feedback advice

[carabella]

I don't claim to be a writer, I know my English written skills are somewhat to be improved. I have great stories which I write as I play them out in my head.

I am new here and received my first feedback today.

THE WORST STORY I HAVE READ WRITTEN BADLY
Then went to quote a paragraph from my story. That was it

I don't see this as feedback as it offers no insight in to how I can improve. Is this common?

It has deterred me from writing anything else

 

[jaF0]

Best advice.

Ignore.

Delete if you wish.

 

[SimonDoom]

Unfortunately, it is fairly common.

My thoughts about criticism, which I try to follow, are:

1. Don't be insulting or say something to hurt the writer.
2. Say something positive if you can.
3. If you criticize, make it constructive. Say something the author can use in the next story rather than just crushing the author's feelings.
4. If you criticize, do so in a way that will help the author do a better job writing the author's story. Don't tell the author to write YOUR story.
5. Don't overdo it.

But much criticism doesn't follow these points.

Since this is your first, keep your chin up, delete it if you want to, and look for more feedback. You'll get more and it won't all be like this.

 

[KeithD]

Helpful critique is great for the writer. It's in no way a requirement of a reader at Literotica, though. The reader is free to respond just as she/he likes--or not--and, mercifully, Literotica provides a means for the writer just to delete any comment not liked.

 

[AlinaX]

Your grammar needs work, the tense keeps shifting, and it's kinda short, but all of that will get better with practice.

 

[yukonnights]

carabella, That's not a very nice welcome to the club of those who want to share their creative writing — So, welcome ~

I just gave a quick read to both of your published stories. You certainly have the imagination a story teller/writer needs. But, I think you do need to work on several technical issues. So here's a bit of feedback I hope will be helpful.

1. There are numerous typos.
2. There are several tense shifts from past to present.
3. There are several instances of head-hopping (where you include more than one person's dialogue/thoughts in a single paragraph.)
4. Your quoted dialogue is not formatted correctly.
5. The stories are very short. (one Lit screen page is about 3750 words. The general consensus is a story of 3 or 4 Lit pages is generally more appreciated by readers.)

So, what to do to resolve these roadblocks? I think the best thing for doing this would be to team up with a "beta reader". That's someone who has a decent grasp on how a story is formatted who will read your story before you submit it and point out issues like these so you can correct them.

In addition to that, I encourage you to develop your characters more fully. You jump right into the sex scene. Readers typically enjoy getting to know the main characters. They like to understand the character's motivations for doing what they do. This is often helped by including character's thoughts/emotions. Erotic stories are still stories and, for a better reception by readers, there needs to be an interest in these people we've invented — and an arc of believable progress to the conclusion.

Hope this helps — and I also hope you don't get frustrated and give up. We've all had to start somewhere — stumble, and get up and try again. And to end on a positive note; Even with the issues I've mentioned, your ratings of 3.65 and 3.90 are not bad scores. So people are liking what you have to say.

 

[SimonDoom]

carabella, That's not a very nice welcome to the club of those who want to share their creative writing — So, welcome ~

I just gave a quick read to both of your published stories. You certainly have the imagination a story teller/writer needs. But, I think you do need to work on several technical issues. So here's a bit of feedback I hope will be helpful.

1. There are numerous typos.
2. There are several tense shifts from past to present.
3. There are several instances of head-hopping (where you include more than one person's dialogue/thoughts in a single paragraph.)
4. Your quoted dialogue is not formatted correctly.
5. The stories are very short. (one Lit screen page is about 3750 words. The general consensus is a story of 3 or 4 Lit pages is generally more appreciated by readers.)

.

I want to add to what Yukonnights wrote because, although I haven't read the story yet, this is all good advice and these are five of the MOST common problems for new authors, so you aren't alone.

Getting a beta reader is a good idea. Find somebody you like or seek someone in the editor's forum.

I strongly recommend also doing two things:

1. Read here. Read stories that are technically solid and see what the authors are doing. Good readers make better writers. Focus on the way they begin their stories, and focus very carefully on how they handle dialogue, because people so often get dialogue wrong.

2. There are many writing how to guides on this site and you probably can find one on a subject of particular interest or need.

Welcome, keep writing, and don't get discouraged.

 

[TreskaNovell]

Damn dude, thats a pretty evil thing to say to someone. What a douche. Ignore them, haters gunna hate. Dont stop trying to write. My first stories were horrible. hell, maybe they still are. I'm not going to give up though, practice will make you better. The book that helped me learn to write better was on writing: a memoir by Stephen king. He has a lot of going pointers on how to tighten an clean up your writing.

 

[Beneaththesurface]

carabella, That's not a very nice welcome to the club of those who want to share their creative writing — So, welcome ~

I just gave a quick read to both of your published stories. You certainly have the imagination a story teller/writer needs. But, I think you do need to work on several technical issues. So here's a bit of feedback I hope will be helpful.

1. There are numerous typos.
2. There are several tense shifts from past to present.
3. There are several instances of head-hopping (where you include more than one person's dialogue/thoughts in a single paragraph.)
4. Your quoted dialogue is not formatted correctly.
5. The stories are very short. (one Lit screen page is about 3750 words. The general consensus is a story of 3 or 4 Lit pages is generally more appreciated by readers.)

So, what to do to resolve these roadblocks? I think the best thing for doing this would be to team up with a "beta reader". That's someone who has a decent grasp on how a story is formatted who will read your story before you submit it and point out issues like these so you can correct them.

In addition to that, I encourage you to develop your characters more fully. You jump right into the sex scene. Readers typically enjoy getting to know the main characters. They like to understand the character's motivations for doing what they do. This is often helped by including character's thoughts/emotions. Erotic stories are still stories and, for a better reception by readers, there needs to be an interest in these people we've invented — and an arc of believable progress to the conclusion.

Hope this helps — and I also hope you don't get frustrated and give up. We've all had to start somewhere — stumble, and get up and try again. And to end on a positive note; Even with the issues I've mentioned, your ratings of 3.65 and 3.90 are not bad scores. So people are liking what you have to say.

Listen to these people on the boards. I was in your exact same situation just a few months ago. Yukonnights took me under his wing and has helps me tremendously as well as several other regulars here with whom I greatly appreciate their advice.

 

[nylonpunkie]

Just taking a moment to congratulate the lovely forum community here, all offering heart-felt and genuinely encouraging advice, x

 

[TN10IC]

That’s terrible I’m sorry someone wrote that feedback. Ignore them!

 

[B_Couric]

I don't claim to be a writer, I know my English written skills are somewhat to be improved. I have great stories which I write as I play them out in my head.

I am new here and received my first feedback today.

THE WORST STORY I HAVE READ WRITTEN BADLY
Then went to quote a paragraph from my story. That was it

I don't see this as feedback as it offers no insight in to how I can improve. Is this common?

It has deterred me from writing anything else

Write more. First, if your story is in the right category, the number of likes (hearts) is probably the best measure of how much it is appreciated. Second would be score. Written feedback will always include bitter asshole feedback.

Second, by writing more, your writing improves. Pay attention to proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. This is the suckiest part of writing for me.

Third, you will be able to tell when your writing has improved. At that point, start up another account and "start fresh". My first account had what I thought were decent stories, but looking back, it's like being in 12th grade reading my 9th grade essays.